Dirty Devil hike/raft

We finally bought packrafts this winter for Christmas; two Scouts that had their maiden voyage last weekend. We opted for Scouts over the bigger boats for some weight savings on trips where they’re carried a lot (like this one) and because they seemed like they’d be adequate for most of the water we have in these parts.

Into the top of Happy on Friday morning.

Lots of petrified wood throughout the trip.

Endless Wingate walls all the way down Happy…

Waves….

Juniper-handled Mora and lunch…

Hoping we wouldn’t regret not bringing a shelter…

Moenkopi…

The Pinnacle. We had planned to make it all the way to the river, but Happy ended up being a bit longer than expected and we ended up camping a mile or so above the narrows. No rain in the night but we did have a few drops later the next morning.

Autumn negotiating the narrows…

We had some lunch and aired up the boats. Pretty sure I left my windshirt here, so if anyone finds a blue Houdini, congrats or shoot me an email if it won’t work for you…

We had flows around 175 CFS, which seemed pretty good. Higher would definitely be better; lower would probably get frustrating.

It was funny having no idea how quickly we were going to be moving. It was a bit concerning after putting in that we immediately had to carry the boats around a super shallow, rocky, woody bend when we were already behind schedule. That ended up being the only really bad spot and the rest of the day was a blast.

The route back to the truck the next morning would be up Hatch Canyon…Hatch is a fantastic and varied canyon. It’s pretty wild how different it is from its northern neighbor.

By early afternoon, it was becoming apparent that I had pretty badly underestimated the mileage of the canyon. I was thinking 18ish to the top, 5 to our bikes that we’d dropped, then a couple miles ride back to the truck. That ended up being quite optimistic. It was starting to look like it was going to be a late one…

Things open up in the upper canyon. The front end of this car was cut off and it was rigged to be a camp trailer. Things like this are far more exciting to me than petroglyphs and pottery pieces.

It was almost dark by the time we got to the top of the Big Ridge. We had some nice views of the Henrys on the way up…

The finishing miles were a bit arduous, but it’s a small price to pay for trips like this on a three-day weekend. Total miles ended up being about 60 hiked, 20 boated. I’m pretty smitten with the boats. The amount of fun for function is insane.

Did this trip about a week after you guys, but from Hanksville. Had two Alpackas and an AIRE ducky. Awesome trip! I think we put in at 112 CFS and had 140 CFS for most of the trip. Believe me, from Happy on down is smooth sailing compared to days one and two out of Hanksville at 112 to 140! Great pics, thanks for sharing.